


The Tragic Goodbye

by AnaiyaRhayne



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:27:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27911497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnaiyaRhayne/pseuds/AnaiyaRhayne
Summary: "You don't think...no, she couldn't have...would she…?"Hermione learns who was responsible for the worst part of her life.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Lucius Malfoy/Severus Snape
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16
Collections: Hermione’s Nook Kissmas





	The Tragic Goodbye

**~The Tragic Goodbye~**

It had been five years since anyone had walked through the thick oak doors of the cabin, but thanks to magic, it looked exactly the same as it had the last Christmas they had all spent together. The fairy lights still twinkled on the tree, the evergreen was still as resplendent as the day they had cut it down, and the tinsel still glittered under the soft torch light. Even the food still looked good enough to eat, though she probably wouldn't have recommended it. The stockings that lined the mantle of the fireplace were still stuffed with gifts, their recipients having never received them. Everything looked picture perfect, as if out of a magazine.

But that was the problem. It may have looked perfect, but it didn't speak of the horrors that they had learned that Christmas day; that day was the day they had lost that which was dearest to them. They had forever lost part of their family. 

"You know he wouldn't have wanted us to mourn for him for as long as we have," she heard a quiet voice say behind her. "Especially not for three years. He would have wanted us to live again...to laugh again."

"I know," she heard herself whisper. "But a part of me feels like I'm betraying him - betraying  _ them _ \- if I were to celebrate without them. I feel...guilty...for moving on."

"There's nothing you should feel guilty about," another voice said gently. She felt her hands being gently taken. She looked up at her husbands, tears streaking down her face. A sob escaped her when she saw both of their eyes swimming in tears.

"Do you want to go inside?" Lucius asked his wife softly, as he softly cupped her cheek and wiped away one of the many escaping tears. 

"I-I-I…" she stuttered, as she felt herself start to hyperventilate. 

"Deep breaths, my love," Severus whispered, wrapping his arm around her waist. "Long, deep breaths. You're okay, love, it'll be okay."

Lucius and Severus sandwiched Hermione gently between them as she completely broke down for the first time in almost two years. Several minutes passed before she lifted her head.

"I'm ready," she whispered. She accepted a chaste kiss from both of her husbands, then took them both by the hand and led them inside. As soon as she crossed the threshold, memories that she thought were solidly locked away started bombarding her.

**_*Flashback*_ **

_ "'Mione!" Ron exclaimed as he skidded into the living room. "It's time!" _

_ "Time for what?" Hermione asked distractedly.  _

_ "'Time for what' she asks," Harry chuckled, taking her by the hand and pulling her to her feet. "Time for dinner, of course. Why else do you think Ron would be so excited?" _

_ "Are you manhandling my wife again, Potter?" Severus asked, his voice full of mirth.  _

_ “Always,” Harry laughed, grinning at his mentor. “Besides, she was my best friend before she was your wife.” _

_ “Well, well, well,” a very familiar and quite distinct disembodied voice came from behind them, “Isn’t that sweet? The little mudblood is married to the traitor.” _

_ Fear filled the trio’s eyes as they quickly turned towards the voice.  _

_ “Bellatrix,” Hermione choked. “What in the fu-” _

_ “Ah, ah, ah, little mudblood,” Bellatrix wagged her finger at the trio, silently silencing them. “We don’t want you to miss out on all the fun, now would we?” _

_ “We?” Lucius asked, carefully coming into the room after hearing his former sister-in-law’s voice. _

_ “Yes, we,” Antonin Dolohov smirked, disillusioning himself beside Bellatrix. “After all, you didn’t think that darling Bella was alone, did you?” _

_ A spell came flying at them from the other side of the room before another word could be spoken. Hermione screamed as Harry hit the floor, dead.  _

_ “Now that wasn’t nice,” Bellatrix pretended to pout. “I wanted to play with him before we killed him.” _

_ “There are plenty of others here that you can play with, Bella,” Fenrir growled. “After all, they were all a part of the Dark Lord’s downfall, and they’re all going to pay.  _

**_*End Flashback*_ **

“Harry was standing right here when Rabastan killed him,” Hermione sniffled, kneeling down on the spot she had lost her oldest friend. "Ron quickly killed him in retaliation, but by then, it was already too late."

Lucius and Severus kneeled beside their wife as she let the horrific memories overtake her. They looked at each other, both knowing that they were thinking the same thing: Hermione blamed herself for the massacre that Christmas Eve. 

"I was the one who set up the wards," she had explained the first time they had asked her. "They got through them so easily that it's obvious I didn't do a good enough job. 

_ They got through them almost too easily, _ Severus had thought to himself. Even now, that same thought echoed through his mind.  _ Those were war level wards, they shouldn't have gotten through them.  _

"What's this?" Lucius' faint voice ripped Severus from his thoughts. He looked up to see what Lucius was holding, his eyes widening almost to comic levels when he realized what it was. 

"That's a ward buster!" Hermione gasped in shock, recognizing the device from her time as an Unspeakable. 

"How in the bloody hell did they get their hands on that?" Severus asked, his thoughts going a million kilometers an hour.

"One of our Unspeakables went missing for a couple of weeks," Hermione said distractedly. "We never found out why, and they came back without a word. A privacy ward was breached while they were gone, but since nothing was reported to be missing, they stopped investigating. This ward buster had to have been what was taken and a replica put I its place."

"When did the Unspeakable go missing?" Lucius asked with trepidation. He remembered one of their group going missing for a few days, but knowing that an Unspeakable had gone missing gave him the chills like nothing else.

"The week preceding Halloween through the week after Halloween," she replied quietly. It still hadn't dawned on her what was going through Lucius's mind, but the look on Severus's face showed that he knew where Lucius was going with his questioning.

"Didn't Ginny go missing during that period of time?" Severus asked softly.

"Yes, the day before Halloween through the day after..." Hermione said slowly. "You don't think...no, she couldn't have...would she…?"

"I think it's entirely possible," Lucius frowned. "Halloween is the day when the veil between us and the other side is thinnest...and after the diary incident, it's entirely possible that Tom could have affected her more than she let on."

"But to betray us like that? To betray  _ Harry  _ and _ Ron _ like that?" Hermione cried. " _ Why _ ? Why would she do that to us? To them?"

"Maybe she thought that you and Harry were still too close for her liking, even after you married us," Severus suggested. "She always did act before thinking things through."

"It's also possible that she wanted revenge," Lucius frowned. "Because I technically stole her first year of school by slipping her the diary, maybe she figured that she would get even with you by having someone help her scare you. I don’t think that she was the one who went to the remaining Death Eaters. Do you know who the Unspeakable was?"

“No, unless we’re actively working together on something, they don’t like us knowing each other’s identities in case one of gets captured,” Hermione explained. “That way, even if we’re tortured to the point of spilling something, we can’t out each other. I could probably ask Croaker, but I doubt he would tell me, if he even knows.”

Lucius pulled her close and softly kissed her head, letting his lips linger for a few extra seconds. 

“I am so sorry, Hermione,” Severus whispered. “I know that there’s nothing that we could say to make things better, but we are both sorry.”   
  
“Just being here with me helps,” Hermione sniffled. “Not leaving me to deal with this alone helps.”

“You’d be out of your mind if you think that we would ever leave you to handle this by yourself,” Lucius scoffed gently. 

A few minutes later, Hermione stood and slowly made her way to the spot where her other best friend was tortured, then killed. 

“Ron was here when Fenrir bit him, before tearing him apart,” tears were now falling like waterfalls down Hermione’s cheeks. “His screams were the reason that Molly came running.”

This time it was Severus who pulled her close and let his lips linger after kissing her head. 

“Molly can be terrifying when she wants to be,” Lucius snorted softly. “Especially when one of her children is in danger. It was only pure luck that she wasn’t killed that night, too.”

“Do you think we’ll ever learn why?” Hermione asked hollowly, as she stood and started making her way to the kitchen. 

“Honestly, I don’t know,” Lucius sighed heavily. “Even if we do, it might not provide the closure that you’re looking for.”

“Whatever happened to Miss Weasley?” Severus asked with a small sneer. 

“She completely disappeared,” Hermione answered scornfully. “No one has seen or heard from her since that night. Hell, I don’t even know if she's still alive. She just better hope that I never come across her in public, otherwise she might learn exactly why the boys said that I was brilliant, but scary.”

Before anyone could say anything else, a silver lynx flew in through the window. 

_ We have a confession, _ the lynx began relaying its message.  _ You’re needed in my office immediately.  _

Hermione looked up at her husbands, her eyes full of fear. She knew the only reason that Kingsley would have sent something to her tonight was if something important had come up. She grabbed Lucius and Severus by the arms and apparated them straight into the minister’s office, forever thankful that Kingsley allowed her access. 

“What’s going on, Kings?” Hermione asked impatiently. 

“When I got here this morning, I had a note waiting for me on my desk,” Kingsley replied. “It directed me down to the holding cells and promised that I would not be disappointed by what I found. I didn’t know what to expect, so I disillusioned myself so that whatever, or whoever, was down there wouldn’t see me and immediately start trying to beg or bargain with me.”

“Who was there?” Severus asked darkly.

“Ginevra Weasley,” Kingsley sighed sadly.

Hermione’s eyes went wide and she started trembling. Lucius noticed immediately and pulled her into a tight embrace. He patted her head slowly and gently, whispering in her ear to try and calm her. After several minutes, her trembling stopped. When she lifted her head again, her cheeks were wet with fresh tears. 

“Why? Why would she do this?”

“Because she felt that despite your marriage, you and Harry were too close for her comfort,” Kingsley pinched his nose. “She was afraid that you would somehow be able to convince him to become part of your group and according to her, ‘Harry was  _ mine. _ ’ Her words, not mine.”

“We told them, told them all, that we were in a closed triad,” Lucius replied. “Our magic would allow no one else.”

“I know,” Kingsley smirked. “She also told us who the Unspeakable was that helped her.”

“Who was it?” Hermione asked. She had long wondered which one of her co-workers had betrayed her and, in turn, had betrayed the ministry. 

“Theo Nott,” Kingsley said flatly, causing the trio to gasp.

“Why would my brother have helped her?” Hermione asked, revealing one of her long held secrets. It was a secret that she had learned on Christmas her last year at Hogwarts. 

“Because while she was in love with Harry, Theo was in love with her,” Kingsley’s face was now streaked with tears. “She didn’t know that, of course, but he saw it as an end to a means: get rid of Harry, and completely decimate the Gold Trio, and he could have his shot with her. She discovered yesterday that he had been plying her with love potions to keep her with him and ultimately forced him to confess what he had done and why. Even though it was ultimately her idea, she only ever wanted to scare you. She never knew that Theo had taken bigger steps and contacted the remaining Death Eaters to do more than just scare.”

Without warning, Hermione’s knees gave out and she slid to the floor. Severus and Lucius kneeled beside her, supporting her, as she broke down into sobs again. This time, though, Lucius and Severus were crying right alongside her. They leaned into her at the exact same time and each gave her a sad kiss on the sides of her head. They knew in that moment that everything they had ever assumed about the attack was completely and one hundred percent wrong. Now, they didn’t know what they were going to do.

“I’m sorry if I’ve ruined your Christmas,” Kingsley said, his voice full of sorrow. “I just thought you would want to know as soon as possible.”

“You didn’t ruin it, Kings,” Hermione said through her tears. “Not even remotely. I’m just glad that the people responsible were caught. And that they can now be persecuted for their crimes. I’m just at a loss as to why Ginny thought she couldn’t come to any of us about this.”

“I don’t know, Hermione,” Severus replied, his voice thick with unshed tears. “And we may never know. Now we just need to try and move past it.”

Hermione leaned over and gave Severus a kiss full of remorse, then did the same with Lucius. 

“I don’t know, either, pet,” Lucius said, his voice wavering. “But I do know that we’ll get through it - together.”


End file.
